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The old adage that pregnant women are “eating for two” is so much truer than the pre- neuroscience-obsessed eras knew. A new study of pregnant women with poor diets found mothers can actually pass on a junk food “tolerance” to unborn children, setting them up for a lifetime of being less sensitive to opioids and needing more salty/sweet/fatty food than others to get the same feel-good response. More
The human brain is truly an amazing organ, and researchers have just discovered one more amazing thing about it: A mechanism used to protect and keep nerve cells alive even when they’re starved of oxygen and nutrients. More
In support of Weight Watchers new diet plan, the group is citing research saying consumers make 200 different decisions about food every day. Um, I guess? I mean, if you take into account all the things you decide not to eat, I suppose that’s possible. Hyperbolic or not, it is a mad mad mad mad food world out there. The organization’s new plan, Weight Watchers 360°, attempts to address this, by focusing on environmental factors that influence diet, instead of just harping on self control. More
Feminist provocateur turned liberal activist Naomi Wolf has a new book coming out this month, called Vagina: A New Biography. Don’t hold the title against her — the underlying premise of the book actually sounds pretty cool, combining neuroscience and cultural history to explore women’s “pelvic neural networks” and the ways our brains, hormones and clitorises are linked. What you should hold against her, however, is that she takes all of this fascinating new science and information and turns into a load of mushy, ditzy, gender essentialist crap. Oh, and she’d like us all to start calling the vagina the “goddess.” More
It’s “Transhuman Week” this week at the Wired UK website, with writers exploring “the ethical, medical and social issues associated with using technology to enhance the human body and mind.” You should probably go to Wired and check out the whole series (do you really want to be left behind when we all start becoming “limitless” superhumans? I didn’t think so) but to get you started, here’s a little primer on one of my favorite forms of The Future Is Now: Nootropics, aka “smart drugs.” More
A team of European scientists is working on developing ‘smart foods‘ that could signal to the brain when you’ve had enough to eat. These foods would be fortified with substances that mimic our bodies’ hunger-regulating hormones. More
Fatty foods interfere with our brains’ ability to taste and enjoy other flavors, according to a new British study. That sounds like bad news, but understanding how fat impacts our perception of flavor could help food makers design products that are healthier and less-fatty but taste as good as (insert-your-favorite-junk-food-here). More
The way our brains handle the neurotransmitter dopamine can help determine how motivated or willing to work we are, according to a new study. In other words, the difference between slackers and overachievers could be explained by their relationships to this crazy brain chemical. Does this mean dopamine based treatments for raising motivation are on the way? More
It sort of goes without saying that when it comes to weight loss, exercise combined with dieting works better than focusing on food alone. But a new study shows that it’s not just the extra calories burned exercising that makes a difference: Physical activity can actually make dieting easier, too, by priming your brain to avoid unhealthy eating. More
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There was a time when people thought body-size was all about willpower—control what you eat, exercise, and you’ll be thin; over-indulge or sloth around, and you won’t. Of course, we know now that it’s much more complicated than that—so many other factors, like genetics, metabolism, environment and the type of calories consumed (to name just a few) play a role in weight and body size. Lately, however, researchers have been coming back to the issue of ‘self-control’ in weight management—only this time, scientists are looking at its biological basis. More
There’s no shortage of evidence that certain foods—mainly those involving sugar and fat—trigger reactions in the brain similar to the ones induced by drugs. Hence our “addiction” to processed food and fast food, sugar “highs” and even “crashes,” too. But a new study out of Uppsala University adds yet another layer to our knowledge of what sugar does to the brain: It stimulates the reward centers, then screws them up. More
Depending on which dictionary you consult, willpower means “energetic determination,” “firmness of will,” “the ability to control oneself and determine one’s actions” or “the strength of will to carry out one’s decisions, wishes or plans.” It all sounds good to me. Regardless of which definition we’re working with, willpower is something I’d like more of, and I’m certainly not alone. (Why else would motivational speakers exist?) But is willpower really something we can work on? Or are the strong-willed simply blessed—and the weak-willed doomed to their fate? More
Neuroscience news gets weirder and weirder all the time: Two recent studies indicate that the future of diet interventions will go beyond surgeries or pills that simulate neurochemicals in the brain, and directly interfere with the brain’s signals and pathways. Researchers from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases in Maryland found that energy-storing white fat in the body can be converted to brown fat, the energy-burning kind, by suppressing a signal in the brain. The research was done in mice, but if applicable in humans, we could potentially turn our body’s stores of fat into the world’s best metabolism booster (if you’re willing to undergo a little genetic engineering, that is). More
Previous research has found that, compared to lean individuals, overweight or obese folks exhibit structural differences in regions of the brain linked to reward-processing and hunger regulation. Now, German neuroscientists looking at gender-differences in the brain structures of overweight men and women have uncovered a surprising result: Obese women show additional differences in the brain regions linked to impulse-control compared to woman with normal-range BMIs. More
